Ilja Pfeijffer - La Superba

“So you want to buy my theater.”

I gave him a confused look.

“You talked to my partner.”

“Who?”

“My partner, Pierluigi.”

I nodded.

“I’ve come to warn you about him. How much was he asking? Two ten? Two twenty?” He saw from my expression that he was somewhere close. “What a rogue. The cheeky devil. That guy is even more untrustworthy than I thought. Shall I tell you something? He doesn’t have anything at all to sell.”

“I know.”

“Because I bought it. That’s to say — two years ago I bought it for about that amount. He’s only a partner on paper since it was handy for administrative reasons. But the theater’s mine.” He looked at me triumphantly. “So. Now you know just in time. You should thank me. I’ve just saved you from being conned out of more than two hundred thousand euros. You have to be on your guard if you want to do business here in Italy.”

He took a sip of his disgusting beer. The Bar of Mirrors was the only place in the city that sold Bryton beer, somewhat out of pity since he’d been a regular for so long. He was the only person who actually ordered it, but they didn’t dare tell him. And what they dared tell him even less was that they regularly had to jettison bottles of it because it was past its sell-by date.

“Therefore,” he began, “if you want to talk about taking over the theater, you need to talk to me. But the good news for you is that I’m prepared to discuss it. I’m in no hurry, but I would part with it for the right amount. It’s always been more of a hobby for me, really. But I simply don’t have enough time for it. I’m too busy with other things, import-export, that kind of work. So tell me, what are you offering? We don’t have to come to an agreement right now, but maybe we can scope out the possibilities.”

“But you don’t have anything to sell, either.”

He didn’t understand. “What are you saying?”

“I said you don’t have anything to sell, either. The theater doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the council.”

First he gave me a look of total astonishment, then he roared with laughter.

“I’m not joking. The theater belongs to the council. I don’t know how much Pierluigi made you pay, but he’s sold you something that didn’t belong to him. It’s all there in black and white in the contract.”

Now he looked a little concerned. “What contract?”

“I happen to have it on me. See for yourself.”

And over the next five minutes a spectacle unfurled nearly beyond description. He put on his reading glasses and began to read indifferently. But he soon paled. His hands began to shake. Sweat pearled on his forehead. Then he turned bright red. And he looked even more distended than he already was. Finally he exploded. He banged his hand on the table, swearing. “I’ll murder him,” he screamed. He got up and stormed off.

28.

“ Vaffanculo .”

“ Pronto ?”

“I’ll hang you from the highest tree on the highest mountain I can find, Leonardo. My father will fuck you so hard up the ass with all his contacts that you’ll wish chairs hadn’t been invented. We’ll strip you so bare you’ll wish you were still in your shirt tails. We’ll shit on you, crap on you, and defecate on you, Leonardo. And given the belly rot you’ve given us, it won’t be a pretty sight, I can tell you that now.”

“Who is this?”

“Who is this? Who is this? I’ll tell you who this is. You’re talking to the person who is going to break both your legs, pull out your nails one by one, and then punch all of your teeth out before hanging you publicly on the square by your shriveled balls.”

“Sorry, I didn’t recognize your voice. Hello, Pierluigi. How’s it going?”

“It’s not going, you dirty foreigner. Think you can come here to my country, my city, ruin my business with your cocky, northern, bulging potato head full of soggy noodles? You’re the barbarians who plundered Rome and now you’re coming here in person for a pathetic replay in my back garden. I’ve spent years building something out of crystal glass and you come along with your big, fat, soft, pale body and stamp on it with your clumsy feet. But I can tell you one thing — crystal glass is expensive, and I’ll recover every last cent back from you to cover damages.”

“I thought we were friends, Pierluigi.”

“Right. So did I.”

“So?”

“Tomorrow at eleven at my father’s office. And please realize this is your last chance to come up with a proposal that will convince us to delay our legal proceedings against you. And that final proposal has five zeros, I can assure you of that.”

“Where’s your father’s office?”

“Find out for yourself. You always know best.”

“That’s not how it works, Pierluigi.”

“Piazza della Vittoria 68/24.”

“Look forward to it.”

“You shouldn’t.”

29.

Walter and I were on time. Piazza della Vittoria 68 turned out to be a stately marble building once designed to impress that still fulfilled its function with verve. Next to the main entrance were copper plates with the names of lawyers, judges, and notaries, each one grander than the last. We were expected. We had an appointment. Number 24 housed Parodi’s office on the fifth floor. At the end of the corridor on the left. Two lifts. The left one didn’t always work. Better take the right.

Walter was visibly intimidated by our surroundings. His nonchalant thespian appearance clashed with the strict patrician marble. He felt uneasy in these palaces of power, probably because he was a director and accustomed to situations where he held the reins in shabby practice rooms in abandoned squats.

“The name’s Parodi,” Pierluigi’s father said. He was sitting at the head of a relatively modest oval table in a spacious, bright office at the front of the palazzo overlooking Piazza della Vittoria. Pierluigi was there, too, but he wasn’t allowed to talk. His father was doing the talking.

“The name’s important. Sit down please. My son Pierluigi here is an absolute idiot, of course. You don’t need me to tell you that. That’s why I arranged the theater for him, to keep him off the streets, and because he can do relatively little harm there. But he’s a Parodi, too. Do you know what I mean? He might be a prick, but he’s my prick. If you’ll excuse my French, but I’m trying to make something clear to you.

“That is to say that as soon as you try to put a spoke in that retard’s wheel, I am compelled to protect that mongoloid. He’s my son. He bears my name. My name is my most important asset in this city. I’d defend my name to the last. I know that you’re an intelligent man. And I know you’ve been in this city for long enough to understand me.

“You’re from northern Europe, which is why you think in legal terms. You think that the contract I arranged for my son for that theater is a public matter. I’ll have to admit you’re right, in essence. And I’d also like to compliment you on the way you managed to get hold of the document. I honestly thought it was sufficiently protected. But clearly you have contacts I didn’t take into account.

“All of this makes you a sizeable opponent. But an opponent. By showing that document to my son’s partner, you’ve caused my son substantial financial damage. And you’ll understand that I’m left with no option but to collect those damages from you in the Parodi name.

“You still look quite unmoved, sitting there at my table. I know what you’re thinking. You believe in Europe and in the idea that Italy is a democratic constitutional state and the fantasy that Genoa is part of Italy. You believe in your democratic rights and in the protection of law. Part of me would like nothing more than for you to be right.